What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?
Direct answer: GEO (generative engine optimisation) is the emerging name for earning accurate mentions inside AI-generated answers. For a NZ small business it is not a new paid auction. It is citeable pages, consistent business details, reviews, crawler access and honest measurement, sitting on top of normal Google and Maps SEO. We use the term because clients hear it; the work is the same approval-gated fundamentals.
What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)?
GEO means making generative AI tools more likely to use your content as a source, and to describe your business correctly when they do. Success looks like correct naming and citations for the questions your customers ask. There is no public GEO scoreboard and no guaranteed generative rank.
The mechanisms that matter are less exciting than the slogans:
- Self-contained factual paragraphs that still make sense when lifted out of the page.
- Entity consistency. Backroom Ops lists Hamilton NZ and hello@backroomops.co.nz the same way everywhere; do the same for your own name, address and phone.
- Third-party corroboration: reviews and mentions on sites that repeat the same details.
- Technical fetchability: crawlable HTML, the right crawlers allowed, and optionally a public /llms.txt summarising your key facts.
What is AEO (answer engine optimisation)?
AEO means optimising for engines that return answers, often with citations, rather than only ten blue links. The customer question becomes the unit of design. In New Zealand that means consistent entity data, answer-first pages with local and GST detail, reviews, and crawl access. It is a label for citeability, not a marketplace where you buy rankings.
How the labels relate: classic SEO targets visibility in Google Search and Maps; AEO targets citeable answers; GEO targets generative engines broadly. The overlap is huge, and jargon wars help agencies more than owners. We treat AEO and GEO as one workstream.
In our weekly work, AEO is an editorial standard. We ask: can the first paragraph stand alone if an assistant lifts it? Does it mention NZ realities? Is the claim still true once the owner has approved it?
Is SEO dead now with AI?
No. "Is SEO dead now with AI?" is a real question people ask on google.co.nz; we captured it as a People Also Ask result on a "how to rank in ChatGPT" search on 20 September 2026. It is a fair fear with the wrong conclusion. Google Search and Maps still send most discovery for NZ small businesses, and assistants still need sources. If your site cannot answer "do you serve my town, what does it cost GST-wise, what happens next?", neither Google nor ChatGPT has much to work with.
What actually changed:
- Some queries now show Google AI Overviews above or beside the results, so citation patterns matter more.
- People ask assistants for recommendations, so entity consistency and reviews matter more.
- Thin affiliate content is easier to skip when an overview answers the fact, so original NZ detail wins.
What did not change: you still need crawlable pages, honest offers, and a business Google can verify on the map. In our diagnostics we still open Google Search Console first: queries you already appear for, pages with impressions but weak clicks, coverage issues.
A Hamilton café still lives on Maps proximity, hours and reviews; a Shopify store shipping NZ-wide still needs Merchant Center hygiene. Dropping SEO to "only do AI" usually makes both surfaces worse. Prices shown without GST clarity, "nationwide shipping" with no rural caveat, or a trading name that does not match the Companies Office and Google all fail humans and machines alike. What is dying is slogan-only sites and "rank overnight" claims.
ChatGPT SEO vs Google SEO: what is different?
Google SEO gets you found in Search and Maps; ChatGPT SEO gets you citeable in assistant answers. They share foundations, but the win and the measurement differ.
| Dimension | Google SEO | ChatGPT / AI SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Primary win | Rankings, Maps pack, clicks | Named in the answer or URL cited |
| Core assets | Pages, Google Business Profile, links, UX | Same, plus extractable answers and crawler access |
| Measurement | Search Console, rank tracking | Fixed question logs across tools |
| What we never sell | Fake #1 promises | Guaranteed mentions |
The work is identical for NAP consistency, service-area honesty, GST clarity, Merchant Center hygiene, review compliance, and approval gates before live edits. It diverges in emphasis: Google weighs local distance and your Google Business Profile heavily for "near me" searches, while assistants care whether a paragraph is self-contained enough to cite.
The split we often recommend: for a Hamilton trade business, most effort goes on Maps, Google Business Profile and service pages, with a deliberate slice for answer formatting, crawler access and monthly AI logs. For ecommerce, feed accuracy and product answers share the budget with Shopping. Invest in Google first, and package the same truth so AI can quote it.
Claude SEO vs ChatGPT SEO vs Google
These are not one ranking system. Build one clear site; measure each tool separately.
| Google Search | ChatGPT search | Claude | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary job | Organic results, Maps, AI Overviews / AI Mode | Assistant answers with citations | Assistant answers with retrieval/citations |
| Key crawlers | Googlebot | OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User (+ GPTBot for training) | Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User (+ ClaudeBot for training) |
| "Rank" meaning | Position in results / pack | Named or cited in answers | Named or cited in answers |
| Paid placement | Google Ads | Separate ad products where available | Not a substitute for organic citeability |
| NZ SMB priority | Usually first | If customers use it | If customers use it |
What differs in practice: robots.txt needs an explicit allow for each search crawler you care about. For Google's AI features, pages need to be indexed and snippet-eligible, and Google Search Central says no special AI schema is required. The training bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot) are policy choices separate from the search citation bots. Platform detail: how to rank in Claude, how to rank in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews (NZ).
How does a local NZ business show up in AI search?
AI search tools draw on the same public footprint customers already use: your website, your Google profile, and third-party pages that mention you. A lovely website with very little text often loses to a plainer competitor that answered the question.
What tends to get cited: the same name, address and phone everywhere; a proper page per service, plus suburb or town pages where they are genuine; answers to common customer questions; and reviews on sites these tools actually read. If your details differ across directories, social pages and the site footer, you make it harder to be recognised as one business.
Overseas content gets NZ rules wrong, so short, accurate answers reviewed by someone who knows the field are useful to humans and machines alike. In health, finance and advice, the professional approves every word. Large firms are often slow because content goes through committees, which means a careful small business can be early without a big budget. Publish in stages: ten solid answers beat fifty rushed ones.
Does FAQ schema help AI search citations?
Indirectly. FAQPage JSON-LD makes question-and-answer structure explicit for machines, which can support Google's understanding and make Q&As clearer to AI systems, but only when the FAQ is visible on the page and accurate. It does not force ChatGPT or AI Overviews to cite you, and Google has narrowed FAQ rich result eligibility over time, so treat schema as help with understanding, not a ranking cheat.
Rules we will not break: no FAQ markup for content that is not on the page; no keyword-stuffed duplicate FAQs across doorway URLs; no medical or financial advice FAQs without professional approval. Use it where you genuinely answer several questions; service pages and guides are better candidates than thin homepages.
To write FAQs assistants can quote, start with the conclusion, keep answers to 2–4 sentences, include NZ constraints such as GST, rural shipping, service areas and timelines, and match real People Also Ask wording when you have captured it. Then add FAQPage JSON-LD mirroring the same text, validate it with a schema tester, and revisit when offers or hours change.
What the blogs claim vs what we promise
Industry posts talk about "citation-worthy structure" and off-page mentions: reasonable patterns, not laws of physics. There is no official AEO or GEO specification from Google or OpenAI with a ranking API for small businesses. We will not restate another agency's five-pillar framework as proven science. We ground claims in published crawler documentation, Google Search documentation and your own measurement.
We refuse to sell "SEO is dead, buy our AI package instead", guaranteed ChatGPT or AI Overview placement, or fake Domain Rating and search volume charts (see the glossary).
Practical checklist
- Pick about ten customer questions; run them in Google and the AI tools customers use, noting who is named and which URLs are cited.
- Fix NAP consistency, your Google Business Profile and empty service pages before any advanced tactics.
- Give each question a page or section with a 40–80 word answer under a question-shaped H2, with NZ-accurate detail.
- Mark up real FAQs only.
- Allow the AI search crawlers you want citations from (OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and their user-fetch bots).
- Track Search Console monthly and a fixed assistant question log alongside it.
- Use AI inside the business for drafts, but approve everything before it goes live.
Illustrative examples
Illustrative examples based on patterns we see with NZ small businesses. Details generalised; not specific client results.
A manufacturer's catalogues were PDF-only and could not be cited cleanly. With the owner's approval, we moved key specifications into HTML product pages. Assistants and Google both gained something fetchable, and no "GEO score" was claimed.
A Hamilton dental practice owner asked an AI assistant to recommend a dentist in her own suburb. It named three practices; hers was not one. We ran the questions a patient would ask across several AI tools. The practices named had consistent details everywhere, clear service pages and reviews on sites the tools read. Hers had a lovely website with very little text. We proposed fixing the basics, with no promise about placement. She approved in stages, and we re-run the same questions monthly so she can see the trend herself.
An owner paused all content work after seeing AI Overviews, assuming SEO was pointless, and later wanted to swap Google SEO for "ChatGPT SEO". Enquiries dipped and Maps was neglected, including wrong holiday hours. We restarted Google Business Profile hygiene and rewrote three service pages with NZ-specific, answer-first blocks, and added a monthly ChatGPT question log. Search Console clicks and Maps calls were the leading indicators; assistant mentions stayed a secondary metric.
FAQ
What is GEO?
Generative engine optimisation means improving how often generative AI tools accurately mention or cite your business. In practice it is clear content, trusted entity signals and measurement, not a guaranteed generative rank.
Is GEO different from AEO?
Mostly branding. GEO emphasises generative engines and AEO emphasises answers; we treat them as one workstream for NZ small businesses.
Does GEO replace SEO?
No, it extends it. For most NZ small businesses Google Search and Maps still drive enquiries, and AI assistants add another place you can be cited.
Do I need AEO if I already do SEO?
If your SEO already produces clear, factual, NZ-specific pages, you are partway there. Add crawler access, question-shaped headings and citation measurement.
Does ranking on Google put me in ChatGPT or Claude?
Not automatically. A strong Google footprint often helps, but each assistant has its own crawlers and retrieval, so measure each one separately.
Can Backroom Ops guarantee AI mentions?
No. We diagnose, propose staged fixes you approve, and measure. We refuse overnight AI-rank promises.
Next step
If you want this done with you approving every change, book a free diagnostic. We show what search and assistants currently say in your niche, then give you a staged list of fixes. Nothing goes live until you approve it, and store ops stay month to month.
Glossary (Ahrefs, Search Console, Merchant Center): /#glossary. About: /about/.